


and terror dances before it

by Morningside



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Bible monsters!, Gen, so many Bible monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:22:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4207767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morningside/pseuds/Morningside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt questions how Father Lantom can keep his faith in a world where aliens and Norse gods can tear open the sky.  Father Lantom responds with sea monsters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and terror dances before it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Writingfish (idraax)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idraax/gifts).



Church attendance has been…strange since the Battle of New York. As the rubble was settling, people rushed to places of worship to grieve, to find help, to connect with each other in the shock of the attack, just as they had in 2001. Such communities knew how to deal with sorrow, and were well accustomed to listening to people pour out their fear and rage.

They were less well equipped to handle the strange waves of information that were the attack’s aftershock: this was no futuristic terror strike but a literal alien invasion. And mythological gods had walked the earth, both on the side of the attackers and in the ranks of the earth’s impossible defenders. Clergy and theologians choked on their disbelief – while one of the first buildings to arise from the wreckage had been the First Manhattan Church of Thor. Strange days indeed.

Matt Murdock had not allowed himself to indulge in too much spiritual fretting during those early days. There were more important matters at hand – and he figured that if his association with a mysterious ninja order had left his faith intact, then it should be able to weather just about anything.

And yet… Here he is, awkwardly toying with his latte in Father Lantom’s office, wondering how he can voice his doubts to himself, let alone to his confessor.

“Father, have things… _changed_ for you since the Battle of New York?”

Father Lantom considers him for a long moment with that intent, unflinching stillness that Matt has come to love about the priest. “Professionally or personally?”

“Personally. How do you…keep praying, when you know what’s out there?”

“Well, this is a change from your normal line of questioning. Is this the conversation where you ask me why I haven’t changed over to the Norse Neo-Pagans?”

“You get that a lot, do you?”

Father Lantom snorts. “About as much as you’d expect. I don’t begrudge people searching for answers, particularly in times like these, but I’m not going anywhere.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Plus, I had to do an interfaith service with the Thor crowd last month, and their hymns are _awful_.”

“But how do you make _sense_ of it all? Beyond hymns and habits, how can Thor and Loki and the rest fit in with what the Church teaches?"

“Son, people think that the Bible talks about God, and the devil, and maybe angels, and that’s it.  But they’re wrong.  There’s all manner of strange creatures in scripture.  Did you know about the sea monsters?”

Matt cocks his head. “What, like Leviathan?”

“Leviathan’s only one of them.  There’s also Rahab, a different sea monster associated with Egypt, and the tanninim, the sea serpents.  Did you know that the sea serpents are the first animals that God creates in Genesis 1?  Most people don’t.  But these sea monsters, these mythical beasts, they’re there in God’s good creation, and they’re somehow set apart from the rest of the swarms of living creatures that dwell in the waters.”

“But sea monsters…doesn’t that just mean, like, whales?  Animals that the ancient writers didn’t understand?”

“Maybe. The King James Bible calls them whales, and that’s a possibility. But you also have to take into account all the other inhuman and supernatural creatures in the Bible.  The giants - both rephaim and nephilim.  The angels that bring good news, and the angels that bring plague and death.  You think that cherubs are fat baby angels? Cupids?” Matt shrugs. “Wrong.  They’re more like sphinxes, and they protect lines that you’re not supposed to cross - the gates to Eden, the Ark of the Covenant. They seem to be something like God’s guard dogs.”

Matt thinks of all the forbidden lines that he has almost crossed, of the lines that he _has_ crossed. Were there cherubs roaring at him as Nobu burned? Or was it some vengeful angel that arranged that fateful meeting of sparks and gasoline? “So, Father, what you’re saying is….”

“What I’m saying is that the Bible accounts for all sorts of strange beings that science has never before encountered.  Some of them hurt humanity and some of them help us.  Some of them are God’s servants and others are God’s enemies.  There’s no simple way to classify them, but our faith, as I understand it, allows for the existence of plenty of existentially terrifying creatures.”

“Like aliens.”

“Like aliens. I know that many people have been reeling from the discovery of these new life forms. They’re wondering where God is when they’ve seen…the things that this city has seen. But I’m not so worried.  I think it’s good for humanity to let go of some of its pride. Genesis tells us that God made the sea monsters before He made any of us.  I just suspect that what the sea was to the ancients, the stars are to us.”

“I remember the first time I left the city as a kid, the first time I really saw the stars. My dad took me on a trip upstate. We lay out in this one field for hours. Dad said he wished he could teach me the constellations but he never learned them, so we just stayed there, looking up, not saying anything. It was weird to return home after that, knowing that there was so much above my head that I couldn’t see through the light pollution. It’s a real pity that people can see so few stars from Hell’s Kitchen. It lets them…it lets them act like they can forget what’s out there.”

“I suppose so.”

“And they’ll be able to see even fewer stars if more luxury condos go up along the Hudson. Thank you, Father.” He stands, and Father Lantom follows him to his feet with an exasperated huff. “This has given me a lot to think about.”

"Does everything need to be fuel for your crusade?"

"I trust God to deal with the Leviathans, but there are other monsters out there.  And as long as I have the right fishhooks for drawing them out...well, then I'm the one who should be confronting them."  He just hopes that the cherubs, whatever they might be, will keep him from going too far.

**Author's Note:**

> The title and the last line come from the description of Leviathan in Job 41.
> 
> morningsided.tumblr.com - for all your Daredevil hell and/or Biblical monster needs.
> 
> (I have no great love of John Lennon, but super-points to anyone who caught the "Nobody Told Me" joke.)


End file.
